The Fiery Angel by Valery Bruisov Read Free Book Online Page B

be angry with me and, jumping up, I hurried after her.
    In her room Renata silently seated herself in the corner on a chair, and there she remained, motionless and speechless. I, not daring now to open a conversation, timidly lowered myself on to the floor next to her. Thus we stayed in the solitary room, holding no speech, and from a distance we might have seemed some lifeless creation, carved by a skilled hand and made of painted wood. All the gayness, all the lack of ceremony with which we had conversed in the beech forest, had now evaporated, leaving the bottoms of our souls dry. I felt myself gradually lapsing into a condition of dumb helplessness, and it seemed to me as if I could now neither utter a word nor attempt a movement. Thus, probably, feel animals when they grow paralysed beneath the staring eye of the rattlesnake.
    On my left through two large open windows could be seen the tiled roofs of the twisting streets of Düssel-dorf, and the belfry of the. church of Saint Lambert, triumphant above the house-tops. The bluish eve spread softly across these triangles and rectangles, breaking up the clearness of their lines and merging them into shapeless masses. And that same bluish evening flowed into the room and swathed us with the white sheets of a shroud. I watched, in the darkness, as brighter and brighter glittered the semi-circular earrings of Renata, and more and more distinct grew the outlines of her thin white hands, and now I could no longer turn away my glance. As all around had become enveloped in the silence of the night, it must be assumed that much time had elapsed, but we did not note its passage, nor hear its steps, nor know of it.
    And now at last, with an effort of will as though I were taking a decision of greatest importance, committing some perilous deed, I tore my eyes away from Renata, tore my soul away from the silence, and spoke:
    “Perhaps you are tired, noble lady, and wish to rest. I shall leave. …”
    My voice seemed to me very unnatural, but the sounds broke that magic circle into which we had been bound. Renata lifted her immobile face; her lips parted, and when she uttered the words it was as if a dead woman spoke, by a miracle:
    “No, Rupprecht, you must not go away. I cannot remain alone; I am in fear.”
    Then, after a few moments of silence, as her thoughts slowly unrolled, she spoke again:
    “But she said that we should ride on whither we were bound, for there awaits us the fulfilment of our desires. So, in Köln we shall meet Heinrich. That I knew even before she spoke, and the hag only read it in my thoughts.”
    Daring sparkled up in me like a tiny flame from under the ashes, and I answered:
    “Why should your Count Heinrich be in Köln if his lands are on the Danube?”
    But Renata did not notice the barb concealed in my retort, and, catching only one expression she clutched at it feverishly.
    In her turn she demanded:
    “ My Count Heinrich? How mine ? Is not all that is mine at the same time also yours, Rupprecht? Is there between us a line, a boundary that divides your being from mine? Are we not one, and the ache of my heart does it not pierce your heart?”
    I was struck by this speech as by a club, for though I was by then already completely subject to Renata’s charms, yet I had not imagined any relation such as her words assumed. I did not even find anything to reply, while she, leaning her pale face towards me and placing her soft hands on my shoulders, asked gently:
    “Do you not love him , Rupprecht? Can one not love him ? But he is of the Heavens above, he is but one.”
    Once more I could not find an answer, and Renata quickly fell to her knees and drew me to stand close to her. Then, turning to the open window, to the brilliant, moonless stars, she began to speak in a voice meek, low, but clear, a sort of litany, to each prayer of which I had to intone a response, like a church choir.
    Renata spoke:
    “Give me to see once more his eyes, blue as the skies